Sheepshearing Beneath a Tree

Conté crayon with stumping, heightened with pen and brown ink and white gouache on wove paper

Dimensions:

11 5/8 x 8 7/8 in. (29.5 x 22.5 cm)

Classification:

Drawings

Credit Line:

Gift of Miss G. Louise Robinson, 1940

Accession Number:

40.12.3

Not on view

The subject of sheep shearing occupied Millet for much of the 1850s. This composition is similar to that of a painting in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which Millet exhibited at the Salon of 1853. He produced several other drawings on this theme, a second painting, and a watercolor that was delivered to his friend and biographer Alfred Sensier in 1857. Finally, he adapted the design in a painting exhibited at the Salon of 1861.